


when i'm with you it's a vibe (baby i can't lie)

by disturbiing



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Golden, M/M, TW: Mention of Drunk Driving, Unrequited Love, harry styles fine line, highway to heaven inspired, summer vibezzzzz, theyre cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:53:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24640411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disturbiing/pseuds/disturbiing
Summary: “Mark disliked driving Hyuck around more than anything in the world.”(Mark is a bad driver, and he's in love with Lee Donghyuck.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Kudos: 38





	when i'm with you it's a vibe (baby i can't lie)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is kind of unfinished and like 5k shorter than i intended or want it to b, but i have a problem w finishing things :,(.

Mark disliked driving Hyuck around more than anything in the world. He wasn’t exactly the most confident driver in the first place, but having another person, especially Donghyuck, in the passenger seat, made the situation about ten times more frightening. Not only because of Donghyuck’s unwarranted criticisms (which were questionable as Hyuck didn’t have a license himself) or his insistence on blasting loud Michael Jackson with the aux cord, but because the younger boy loved driving at sunset. 

Every day of the summer, Mark got a text as pink hues filled the sky, Donghyuck begging him to drive down the freeway. Mark could never say no. In the rosy filter of the sky, Hyuck’s skin glowed, his eyes drooped romantically as he sang soft melodies under his breath, barely aware he was doing it at all. And Mark’s soul, that had already hung the other end of its life line around Hyuck’s unreciprocal heart, strained at the view.

Some days, Mark thought about pretending to be busy, or napping, to get out of this daily torture. However, he was a sadist, and always walked back into the heartbreak he savored.

It was a sweltering hot day in the middle of July, and Mark sat in the driver’s seat of his beat up Honda, tapping his foot lightly on the floor, waiting for that obnoxious notification to call him back to his personal hell. He used to wait for Donghyuck to text him to get in the car, but nowadays he didn’t even bother, he just parked at the sidewalk around eight. The text would come.

Sure enough, he got the message.

Hyuckie:  _ IT’S PINK OUT. COME COME COME! DRIVE ME! _

Mark honked twice to let him know he was already there. After a moment, long legs stretched out the front door and bounded to his car. He was wearing the same sweater that he had worn all week, a worn out Oregon State sweater that was thrifted from some Goodwill.

“I brought you a Coke,” the light haired boy said, dropping the drinks he brought into the cupholders before fastening his seatbelt.

“Oh shit, thanks. Remember when you brought soju?” Mark teased. It was yesterday that Hyuck brought  _ alcohol _ to the drive, claiming that Mark should get drunk at least once before senior year. Mark almost smashed the bottle on his head and gave him a lesson on the dangers of drunk driving.

“I wanted you to crash.” Hyuck shrugged. His defense for drunk driving was that all his friends drove when they were high. Mark hated high schoolers.

“If I crashed, you couldn’t get your drives, dude.” Mark punched him.

In the real world, when sunsets came at five p.m., when the air bit cold, and school bells rang, Mark and Hyuck didn’t talk to each other. Mark ate lunch with his senior friend, Johnny, and Johnny’s friends until they graduated two years ago. Since then, Mark had gotten used to eating by himself and a Netflix show.

Donghyuck and his friends, on the other hand, were well known around the school. It often seemed like they had followers, or fans, the way people cared about everything they did. The parties they went to, the places where they ate, the things they wore, became the most popular in the little social world of their high school. When trapped in that cruel mini-society, Mark hated them, hated his own insignificance, and swore not to be like all those other brainwashed kids that fell in love with them.

Mark swerved onto the freeway, and Donghyuck whooped out the open window. The bass from the song that was blasted in the car ran alongside Mark’s heartbeat.

“The air smells so good, Mark-hyung!” Hyuck grinned and leaned back to rest his feet on the dashboard. “Summer is for sure my favorite season. Not having school is just a benefit, honestly-- Wait, don’t merge now, a car is coming up behind us.”

“Wait, fuck, I can’t see anything,” Mark squinted at the rearview mirror that was showing him nothing.

“Mark-hyung, you really can’t drive, huh?” Donghyuck teased. Mark glared at him and slapped the back of his head. “Ow!”

“Yeah, summer has the best sunsets, dude.” Mark said, merging into the carpool lane. The light pink strokes in the sky had already deepened into magenta, riding on top of deep purple and laced with pretty orange streaks.

“Can I play Fine Line on the aux?” Hyuck asked, but he was already plugging in his phone to the radio. They loved listening to Harry Styles, probably second to only Michael Jackson. Mark knew that his Spotify Rewind at the end of this year would be filled with reminders of Donghyuck.

In May, just three months ago, Mark’s mom went to some stupid school event and saw her old best friend from Korea in one of the classrooms. They hadn’t seen each other in twenty-five years, losing contact when Mark’s mom moved to the U.S. at nineteen. Somehow they had missed each other while living in the same city for three years. They decided to have dinner together, and Mark found himself sitting across the achingly beautiful Donghyuck Lee. 

Mark had always found it easy to hate the other boys, but something about Hyuck always made him hurt. Only when looking at Hyuck, did he really despise his own unpopularity, that prevented them from becoming friends. Or possibly more. But something strange happened at that dinner, a week before Mark’s last week of junior year. Donghyuck asked Mark to drive him to the nearest boba store. And they got boba, then kept on driving. And Mark listened to him sing, and Hyuck pointedly didn’t laugh at Mark’s bad jokes, and they settled into an easy friendship. Thus started a daily routine.

“Coming up on the right, a beautiful In-n-out,” Donghyuck said in a fake announcer’s voice. “The question tonight is, will Mark Lee be buying his favorite friend Donghyuck a Double-Double and a milkshake?” Mark giggled and shushed him.

“I’ll buy you a milkshake, but shut up for a sec, it’s our favorite song!” Mark shouted.

_ Golden _ came on the radio. 

“Hyuck, I like it when you sing this one! Can I hear it please?” Mark asked, squinting into the blinding horizon.

“Yeah, I really like this one too. Did you ever hear the original lyrics to this song?” Hyuck stared at him.

“No.” Mark smiled. “Sing it for me.”

_ He’s so golden _

_ He’s so golden _

_ I know that you’re scared _

_ Because I’m so open _

“Oh.” The lyrics made a familiar shiver run up his spine. “I love that.”

“Me too.”

Mark pulled up to the In-n-out and ordered fries for himself, and for Hyuck, a milkshake. While they waited they found out “Which Friends character are you most like?” (Mark got Ross, which they both agreed was wrong, Hyuck got Rachel) and “When are you going to meet your soulmate?” (‘You’ve already met’) on Buzzfeed. Hyuck sang some more, and Mark jokingly rapped to the verses of Airplane and Baby.

Soon however, the sun began to disappear completely, and the sky was more a purple-blue than pink. It was the familiar sign that their time today was over, and Mark began to take a path back to Donghyuck’s home. Melancholy sadness filled Mark’s heart, and he wished that he knew how to ask Hyuck to stay a little longer. He wished that sunsets lasted for hours.

Mark knew that he was too immature of a driver to pull his eyes from the road, but he turned to look at Donghyuck’s face one last time. It stuttered between each street light, flickering in and out of darkness. Hyuck looked up at Mark, his eyes misty and intense, there, then not there, then there again. He was so beautiful, straight from a movie scene. He was all Mark wanted.

“Mark,” he sighed lightly, “Can I kiss you?”

Mark hit the brakes, bringing the car to a slow stop in the middle of their empty suburban road. His heart rattled rapidly in his chest like a snake on attack. This couldn’t be real, it had to be a dream.

Desperately, Mark tried to commit the view to memory. The half light across Hyuck’s face, the sweet smell of summer and jasmine, the souring taste of Cola on his tongue, the faint sound of crickets in the distance, and his pounding heart. This picture would just be a painful memory by September, when they were forced to go back to their separate lives. In a second, he decided he was okay with that, that the pain of reality was worth the euphoric dream he was living now. Mark knew he would never forget this moment, this summer. This endless summer of drives, and laughter, desperation, and hurt, and want, and his first kiss, from the golden boy with the angel voice. 

“ _ Yes _ .”


End file.
